Superman
Image:Superman1.jpg| Image:SupermanKalL.jpg| Image:Superman (Earth-One) 001.jpg| Image:Superboy and Krypto.JPG| Image:justice_society_vol03_010.jpg| Image:Superboy sinestro.jpg| Image:Tom Welling 01.JPG| Image:Superman X 03.JPG| Image:Superman - Secret Identity 1 (textless).jpg| Other Versions of Superman Image:Superman logo.JPG|Superman (Earth-15) Image:Superman logo.JPG|Superman (Earth-30) Image:Superboy sinestro.jpg|Superman (Earth-Prime) Image:Superman Chris Reeve 01.jpg|Superman (Movie Version) Image:Superman (DCAU).JPG|Superman (DCAU) Image:Superman logo.JPG|Superman (Titans Tomorrow) Superman comics Image:Action Comics 1.jpg|Action Comics Image:Adventures of Superman 424.jpg|Adventures of Superman Image:All-Star Superman 01.jpg|All-Star Superman Image:Man of Steel 1.jpg|Man of Steel Limited Series Image:Superman v.1 01.jpg|Superman (Volume 1) Image:Superman_v.2_01.jpg|Superman (Volume 2) Image:Superman - Man of Steel 01.jpg|Superman: Man of Steel Image:Superman - Man of Tomorrow 01.jpg|Superman: Man of Tomorrow Image:Worlds Finest v.1 01.jpg|World's Finest | SeeAlso = * Superboy * Supergirl * Clark Kent | Minor = }} __TOC__ Publication History The first Superman character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster was not a hero, but a villain. Their short story "The Reign of the Superman" concerned a bald-headed villain bent on dominating the world. The story did not sell, forcing the two to reposition their character on the right side of the law. In 1935, their Superman story was again rejected by newspaper syndicates wanting to avoid lawsuits, who recognized the character as being similar to a lead character from Philip Wylie's 1930 novel. DC decided to take a chance with Superman, figuring if any lawsuits were filed, they would just drop the feature. The revised Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1, June 1938. Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to the company for $130 and a contract to supply the publisher with material. The Saturday Evening Post reported in 1941 that the pair was being paid still a fraction of DC's Superman profits. In 1946, when Siegel and Shuster sued for more money, DC fired them, prompting a legal battle that ended in 1948, when they signed away any further claim to Superman or any character created from him. DC soon took their names off the byline. Following the huge financial success of Superman: The Movie in 1978 and news reports of their pauper-like existences, Warner Communications gave Siegel and Shuster lifetime pensions of $35,000 per year and health care benefits. In addition, any media production which includes the Superman character must include the credit, "Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster". During a multimedia career spanning over sixty years, Superman has starred in nearly every imaginable situation, and his powers have increased to the point that he is nearly omnipotent. This poses a challenge for writers: "How does one write about a character who is nearly as powerful as God?" (Superman's Kryptonian name, Kal-El, resembles the Hebrew words for "voice of God") This problem contributed to a decline in Superman's popularity, especially during the 1960s and 1970s under the editorship of Mort Weisinger and then Julius Schwartz, when Marvel Comics brought a new level of character development to mainstream comic books. By the early 1980s, DC Comics had decided that a major change was needed to make Superman more appealing to current audiences. Writer-artist John Byrne joined Superman and re-started with his The Man of Steel retelling of his origin. This 1986 reboot brought substantial changes to the character and met huge success at the time, being one of the top-selling books. The re-launch of Superman comic books returned the character to the mainstream, again in the forefront of DC's titles. All Star Superman, launched in 2005, is an ongoing series under DC's All Star imprint, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely. DC claims that this series will "strip down the Man of Steel to his timeless, essential elements". The All Star imprint attempts to retell some of the history of DC's iconic characters, but outside of the strict DC universe continuity. Birthright Revamp Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright is now the accepted origin story of Superman. Waid was assigned the task with the purpose being to streamline the comic origin make is similar to both the movies (with Superman Returns then on the horizon) as well as--perhaps especially--Smallville, which had proven very popular. The following summary is from the 12 series. The cold, fairly dystopian re-imagining of Krypton created by John Byrne was jettisoned. Much like Jeph Loeb and others had done with their "Return to Krypton" arcs, Waid restored the idea of Krypton being more like it had been in the Silver Age--a place of great wonder and myth. In Jor-El's words, the "people grew tired of war, so they made peace; they feared the unknown, so they conquered it with science; and they yearned for heaven, so they created it beneath their very feet...". A substantial change was with the S-shield as well--no longer was it a symbol for his family's house, as it had been in the Silver Age, or merely an "S" standing for Superman, as it had been in Byrne's revamp, but now it was the Kryptonian symbol for hope. It was shown to be a popular symbol, used on flags, paintings, jewelry, and monuments all over Krypton. It was also on a red, blue, and yellow tapestry that was included in Kal-El's rocket ship. Jor-El was still the scientist whom no one would believe, but instead of Kal-El being an embryo when he was rocketed off, he was again said to be a young child. The Kents were still farmers, as always, but they were even younger than they had been before. Whereas John Byrne had portrayed them as perhaps in their early to mid thirties when they found Kal-El (making them in their mid sixties or perhaps even seventies during Superman's adventures), Waid portrays them as being between 20 and 25 (again to make them closer to their Smallville counterparts). Their characters are also given an overhaul in their personalities to make them more "modern." Martha, for example, is far from the simple lovable, wise farmer's wife who loves to bake and knit. She is portrayed as being fascinated with aliens, U.F.O.s, etc., and even runs her own website dedicated to such stuff when Clark is in his twenties. The entire dynamic between Jon and Clark regarding his Superman identity has also been reversed. In Byrne's era, Superman was committed to using his powers in secret, and once "outed" he retreated to Smallville, unsure of what to do. It was Jonathan's suggestion that he adopt a costume and dual identity, inspired by the JSA of the 1940s. Waid's story, however, has Clark coming up with the idea of the costume and identity, and shows Jon dismayed at the idea, feeling like Clark is trying to abandon his identity (and, by extension, his connection to his earth family). Waid also brought about a new (or arguably, reintroduced an old) vision power, sometimes referred to as "soul vision." Essentially, Clark can see the "aura" surrounding a living being--an aura that disappears when they die. Waid introduced this as a way of explaining why Clark feels so compelled to defend life, as he can literally see it. Going along with this power, Waid also changed Clark into a vegetarian. These decisions have met with mixed reactions from fans (see Talk page). Notes After the establishment of DC Comics' Multiverse in the 1960s, it was established retroactively that the Golden Age version of Superman lived on the parallel world of Earth-Two, while his Silver Age counterpart lived on Earth-One (although the character, having never gone away after the end of the Golden Age, had been published as one ongoing incarnation since his debut). A series of stories in the 1970s established that the Earth-Two Superman, after losing his memory thanks to the Wizard, had married his version of Lois Lane in the 1950s (Action Comics #484, (1978)), followed by having him become the editor-in-chief of the Daily Star. In the late 1970s, Superman discovered a rocket of Kryptonian origin landing on Earth, which contained his cousin, Kara Zor-L; after acclimating to Earth, Kara became the superheroine Power Girl. Superman also continued in serving with the revived Justice Society as a member; he was revealed to have been a founding member of the group in the team's origin story in DC Special #29. In the early 1980s, Superman was also shown to have been a member of the All-Star Squadron during World War II. During the 1985 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths, the various parallel Earths were collapsed into one, retroactively eliminating Earth-Two and all that it contained. The Earth-Two Superman, along with his wife Lois, were spared from annihilation, however, and entered a "paradise" dimension at the end of the series. This Superman wasn't seen again until the miniseries The Kingdom in 1999, where it was revealed that he had found a means of exiting his dimension, but chose not to at that time. In Infinite Crisis #1 (2005), the Earth-Two Superman was shown as having observed events in the post-Crisis DC Universe from his dimension, and finally decided to re-enter the mainstream DC Universe. The Golden-Age Superman(Earth-Two) is considerably weaker than the Silver-Age(Earth-One). The Superman of Earth-One can easily lift planets while the Superman of Earth-Two would have trouble lifting a skyscraper. This stayed until the time of the crisis, around this time Earth-Two Superman grew more powerful, almost as powerful as his Earth-One counterpart. *Clark Kent is the secret identity of Superman. Kent, as opposed to Clark, is traditionally presented as behaving in a more introverted or "mild-mannered" manner compared to his superheroic self. As Clark Kent, Superman has always worn his costume underneath his Clark Kent clothes, which lends itself to easy transference between the two personalities. In the wake of John Byrne's The Man of Steel, the contemporary reboot of Superman continuity, many traditional aspects of Clark Kent were dropped in favor of giving him a more aggressive and extroverted personality, including such aspects as making Kent a top football player in high school, along with being a successful author. Recently, some aspects of this change have been dropped, in favor of bringing back elements of the earlier "mild-mannered" version of Kent. In Metropolis, Clark Kent works as a reporter at the Daily Planet, "a great metropolitan newspaper" which allows him to keep track of ongoing events where he might be of help. Largely working on his own, his identity is easily kept secret. Fellow reporter Lois Lane became the object of Clark's/Superman's romantic affection. Lois's affection for Superman and her rejection of Clark's clumsy advances have been a recurring theme in Superman comics, television, and movies. Some fans have noted that in order for the disguise to be credible, Clark has to be at least as skilled an actor as Christopher Reeve himself; in the Birthright mini-series, young Clark Kent studied the Meisner technique so that he could seamlessly move between his Clark and Superman personas. Trivia * Superman's "S" shield has differed in the different eras. The modern Superman, under John Byrne, had the "S" as nothing more than that: just an S which stood for Superman, stitched together by Martha Kent after Superman's debut in Metropolis. With Mark Waid's Birthright series, the "S" shield was re-imagined as the Kryptonian symbol for "hope." After Infinite Crisis, it was further revealed that an inverted "S" shield was the symbol for resurrection. * The 1940s radio serial, The Adventures of Superman, introduced Perry White, Jimmy Olsen and Inspector Henderson to the Superman story. The series also introduced kryptonite, and told the first stories about Superman meeting Batman. * There have been a number of TV shows and movies on Superman. The first was series of cartoons by the Fleischers, Superman (1941 Animated Serial). * The TV show Smallville focuses on a teenage Clark Kent. * Prior to Superman: Birthright, Superman's favorite food was Beef Bourguignon with Ketchup, but following Mark Waid's retcon, Superman is now a vegetarian. * Narrator Bill Kennedy intoned at the start of each program: "Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look! Up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's Superman! Yes, it's Superman - strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman - who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel with his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a neverending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way." * The use of the name 'Clark' came from actor Clark Gable. The name 'Kent' came from Kent Taylor, actor and the brother-in-law of Jerry Siegel's wife. * The prospect of Superman and Wonder Woman as a couple has been an ongoing debate among fans. In the John Byrne revamp of Superman, Superman felt a very strong attraction to Wonder Woman, even to the point of dreaming and fantasizing about her. While Superman initially thought romance would never be a part of his life due to his crime fighting, he thought for a time that his subconscious was telling him that Wonder Woman was the closest match he would ever find in a potential romantic partner. There have also been hints over the years that Wonder Woman herself is attracted to Superman. * According to official DC facts, Superman stands 6 foot 3 inches and weighs 225 pounds. His given age has varied over the decades; during the 1970s and 1980s, his age in most stories was 29, while the timeline given in Zero Hour #0 and most stories written since then increased his age to 35. * One of Superman's favorite snacks are soft pretzels from a neighborhood vendor named Mahjoub. * Actor Michael Dangerfield lent his voice to the character of Superman on the Krypto the Superdog animated series. * Actor Yuri Lowenthal provides the voice for Superman X, a 41st century clone of Superman on the ''Legion of Super-Heroes animated series. ----